Our Catholic Faith - Sacrifice Of The Mass

The word Mass (missa) first established itself as the general designation for the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the West after the time of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), the early Church having used the expression the "breaking of bread" (fractio panis) or "liturgy" (Acts 13:2, leitourgountes); the Greek Church has employed the latter name for almost sixteen centuries. There were current in the early days of Christianity other terms;

The Lord's Supper" (coena dominica),
the "Sacrifice" (prosphora, oblatio),
"the gathering together" (synaxis, congregatio),
"the Mysteries", and
(since Augustine), "the Sacrament of the Altar".

With the name "Love Feast" (agape) the idea of the sacrifice of the Mass was not necessarily connected. Etymologically, the word missa is neither (as Baronius states) from a Hebrew word, nor from the Greek mysis, but is simply derived from missio, just as oblata is derived from oblatio, collecta from collectio, and ulta from ultio. The reference was however not to a Divine "mission", but simply to a "dismissal" (dimissio) as was also customary in the Greek rite (cf. "Canon. Apost.", VIII, xv: apolyesthe en eirene), and as is still echoed in the phrase Ite missa est. This solemn form of leave-taking was not introduced by the Church as something new, but was adopted from the ordinary language of the day, as is shown by Bishop Avitus of Vienne as late as A.D. 500 (Ep. 1 in P.L., LIX, 199):

In churches and in the emperor's or the prefect's courts, Missa est is said when the people are released from attendance.

In the sense of "dismissal", or rather "close of prayer", missa is used in the celebrated "Peregrinatio Silvae" at least seventy times (Corpus scriptor. eccles. latinor., XXXVIII, 366 sq.) and Rule of St. Benedict places after Hours, Vespers, Compline, the regular formula: Et missae fiant (prayers are ended). Popular speech gradually applied the ritual of dismissal, as it was expressed in both the Mass of the Catechumens and the Mass of the Faithful, by synecdoche to the entire Eucharistic Sacrifice, the whole being named after the part. The first certain trace of such an application is found in Ambrose (Ep. xx, 4, in P. L. XVI, 995). We will use the word in this sense in our consideration of the Mass in its existence, essence, and causality.

I. THE EXISTENCE OF THE MASS

Before dealing with the proofs of revelation afforded by the Bible and tradition, certain preliminary points must first be decided. Of these the most important is that the Church intends the Mass to be regarded as a "true and proper sacrifice", and will not tolerate the idea that the sacrifice is identical with Holy Communion. That is the sense of a clause from the Council of Trent (Sess. XXII, can. 1): "If any one saith that in the Mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema" (Denzinger, "Enchir.", 10th ed. 1908, n. 948). When Leo XIII in the dogmatic Bull "Apostolicae Curae" of 13 Sept., 1896, based the invalidity of the Anglican form of consecration on the fact among others, that in the consecrating formula of Edward VI (that is, since 1549) there is nowhere an unambiguous declaration regarding the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Anglican archbishops answered with some irritation: "First, we offer the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; next, we plead and represent before the Father the Sacrifice of the Cross . . . and, lastly, we offer the Sacrifice of ourselves to the Creator of all things, which we have already signified by the oblation of His creatures. This whole action, in which the people has necessarily to take part with the priest, we are accustomed to call the communion the Eucharistic Sacrifice". In regard to this last contention, Bishop Hedley of Newport declared his belief that not one Anglican in a thousand is accustomed, to call the communion the "Eucharistic Sacrifice." But even if they were all so accustomed, they would have to interpret the terms in the sense of the thirty-nine Articles, which deny both the Real Presence and the sacrifical power of the priest, and thus admit a sacrifice in an unreal or figurative sense only. Leo XIII, on the other hand, in union with the whole Christian past, had in mind in the above-mentioned Bull nothing else than the Eucharistic "Sacrifice of the true Body and Blood of Christ" on the altar. This Sacrifice is certainly not identical with the Anglican form of celebration.

The simple fact that numerous heretics, such as Wyclif and Luther, repudiated the Mass as "idolatry", while retaining the Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Christ, proves that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is something essentially different from the Sacrifice of the Mass. In truth, the Eucharist performs at once two functions: that of a sacrament and that of a sacrifice. Though the inseparableness of the two is most clearly seen in the fact that the consecrating sacrificial powers of the priest coincide, and consequently that the sacrament is produced only in and through the Mass, the real difference between them is shown in that the sacrament is intended privately for the sanctification of the soul, whereas the sacrifice serves primarily to glorify God by adoration, thanksgiving, prayer, and expiation. The recipient of the one is God, who receives the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son; of the other, man, who receives the sacrament for his own good. Furthermore, the unbloody Sacrifice of the Eucharistic Christ is in its nature a transient action, while the Sacrament of the Altar continues as something permanent after the sacrifice, and can even be preserved in monstrance and ciborium. Finally, this difference also deserves mention: communion under one form only is the reception of the whole sacrament, whereas, without the use of the two forms of bread and wine (the symbolic separation of the Body and Blood), the mystical slaying of the victim, and therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass, does not take place.

The definition of the Council of Trent supposes as self-evident the proposition that, along with the "true and real Sacrifice of the Mass", there can be and are in Christendom figurative and unreal sacrifices of various kinds, such as prayers of praise and thanksgiving, alms, mortification, obedience, and works of penance. Such offerings are often referred to in Holy Scripture, e.g. in Ecclus., xxxv, 4: "All he that doth mercy offereth sacrifice"; and in Ps. cxl, 2: "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight, the lifting up of my hands as evening sacrifice." These figurative offerings, however, necessarily presuppose the real and true offering, just as a picture presupposes its subject and a portrait its original. The Biblical metaphors -- a "sacrifice of jubilation" (Ps. xxvi, 6), the "calves of our lips (Osee, xiv, 3), the "sacrifice of praise" (Heb., xiii, 15) -- expressions which apply sacrificial terms to sacrifice (hostia, thysia). That there was such a sacrifice, the whole sacrificial system of the Old Law bears witness. It is true that we may and must recognize with St. Thomas (II-II:85:3), as the principale sacrificium the sacrificial intent which, embodied in the spirit of prayer, inspires and animates the external offerings as the body animates the soul, and without which even the most perfect offering has neither worth nor effect before God. Hence, the holy psalmist says: "For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt-offerings thou wilt not be delighted. A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit" (Ps. I, 18 sq.). This indispensable requirement of an internal sacrifice, however, by no means makes the external sacrifice superfluous in Christianity; indeed, without a perpetual oblation deriving its value from the sacrifice once offered on the Cross, Christianity, the perfect religion, would be inferior not only to the Old Testament, but even to the poorest form of natural religion. Since sacrifice is thus essential to religion, it is all the more necessary for Christianity, which cannot otherwise fulfil its duty of showing outward honour to God in the most perfect way. Thus, the Church, as the mystical Christ, desires and must have her own permanent sacrifice, which surely cannot be either an independent addition to that of Golgotha or its intrinsic complement; it can only be the one self-same sacrifice of the Cross, whose fruits, by an unbloody offering, are daily made available for believers and unbelievers and sacrificially applied to them.

If the Mass is to be a true sacrifice in the literal sense, it must realize the philosophical conception of sacrifice. Thus the last preliminary question arises: What is a sacrifice in the proper sense of the term? Without attempting to state and establish a comprehensive theory of sacrifice, it will suffice to show that, according to the comparative history of religions, four things are necessary to a sacrifice:

a sacrificial gift (res oblata),
a sacrificing minister (minister legitimus),
a sacrificial action (actio sacrificica), and
a sacrificial end or object (finis sacrificii).

In contrast with sacrifices in the figurative or less proper sense, the sacrificial gift must exist in physical substance, and must be really or virtually destroyed (animals slain, libations poured out, other things rendered unfit for ordinary uses), or at least really transformed, at a fixed place of sacrifice (ara, altare), and offered up to God. As regards the person offering, it is not permitted that any and every individual should offer sacrifice on his own account. In the revealed religion, as in nearly all heathen religions, only a qualified person (usually called priest, sacerdos, lereus), who has been given the power by commission or vocation, may offer up sacrifice in the name of the community. After Moses, the priests authorized by law in the Old Testament belonged to the tribe of Levi, and more especially to the house of Aaron (Heb., v, 4). But, since Christ Himself received and exercised His high priesthood, not by the arrogation of authority but in virtue of a Divine call, there is still greater need that priests who represent Him should receive power and authority through the Sacrament of Holy Orders to offer up the sublime Sacrifice of the New Law. Sacrifice reaches its outward culmination in the sacrificial act, in which we have to distinguish between the proximate matter and the real form. The form lies, not in the real transformation or complete des